The Usual
by Chasing Liquor
Summary: It's Christmas Eve and Daniel Jackson's in for the usual holiday.


Title: The Usual  
  
Spoilers: Through like Forever in a Day  
  
Season/Setting: Season 3ish  
  
Disclaimer: I can't keep track of who owns these guys, but it ain't me.  
  
-------------  
  
Daniel eyed the food, or what passed for it, with contempt and pushed his plate away, turning his gaze Heavenward and regarding the ceiling with all the gusto of a gunned-down pacifist. He wasn't sure if the commissary's standards had plummeted or his appetite had ceased to exist, but either way, the archaeologist had scarcely been able to stomach anything all day. It had been an uneventful one to that point, save a myriad of off-world effects that SG-12 had sprung on him in not-so-polite fashion and requested translations for.  
  
He wondered what he was even doing there. It was December 23rd, Christmas a mere two days away, and SG-1 was on stand-down through the second week of January. The answer wasn't shy, though – where else was he going to go? Jack was out of town trying to reconcile with his wife, Teal'c was taking the opportunity to reconnect with his son on Chulak, and Sam was off to her brother's in San Diego tomorrow. That left him and his rocks and another brutal holiday.  
  
It had never been an especially important one to him – his faith in God phased in and out of existence with regularity – and he hadn't celebrated it during his marriage to Sha're, but he was always left with a melancholic knot in his stomach and a bittersweet grin every time he saw a child with his parents at the mall or two people in love embracing on a snowy evening. He longed for those things and he'd given up hope for them. At 32, his youth would fade in the next decade or so, and all he'd have to show for it were classified records and the bond he shared with his team.  
  
Teal'c had asked Daniel to join him on Chulak, but the young linguist knew it would be an imposition, no matter the Jaffa's claims to the contrary. He'd not even seen Jack before he'd left on account of the elder man's zest to reconnect with his estranged lover. Sam's smile had been joyous as she related her holiday plans to her friend. She adored her family very much and cherished what little time she got to spend with them. In a sense, Daniel resented it. Not that she cared so much for them and them for her, but only because misery loves company, and Sam was certainly great company.  
  
He sighed audibly as he thought of his layered relationship with the kind- faced Captain. They shared a bond greater than any he'd ever known, and he included in that count his wife, who he'd have died for at a moment's notice and loved so wholly and completely that it had scared him. Imagine his consternation, then, at his closeness to Sam. He'd loved her for some time, and she him, but somewhere along the way, even amidst his tireless search for Sha're, that love had had grown into something even deeper, greater – he knew he was in love with her, and he knew it was a sleeping dog he would most regrettably allow to lie until the end of their respective days. It made him sick inside.  
  
"Daniel?"  
  
He didn't look up. "Hmmm?"  
  
"Giving your meatloaf the silent treatment?"  
  
The quip tore him from his reverie and he looked up into Sam's amused eyes. She smiled, her countenance a hybrid of general content and surfacing curiosity. For a moment, he forgot how to speak and didn't care to learn again. It passed, though, and he spoke.  
  
"It wasn't being very nice. I think I got Jack's batch," Daniel replied, his own lips turned upward a bit, hinting at a smile.  
  
Sam's expression soured when it failed to reach his eyes and she took the seat across from him.  
  
"How come you're still here?" she asked.  
  
Daniel looked down a moment, pondering a diplomatic reply. The sigh from his companion told him he'd taken too long and that half-truths would fall on deaf ears. When he met her gaze again, he felt a jarring sadness permeate his very essence as he observed that her smile had melted away and left a frown in its stead.  
  
"Oh... it's, uh..." He looked away again. "It's just easier, you know?"  
  
Against every exhausted preemptive effort, the anthropologist felt a tear settle on the edge of his eyelid when he blinked. When he thought about things analytically, as he'd been doing before Sam arrived, his loneliness was easier to digest. But when he had explain to his closest friend in practical terms why he would be performing thankless tasks over the holidays, it became a different beast entirely, one of malicious intent, whose only desire was to see Daniel spiritually and emotionally bankrupt.  
  
Sam reached her arm across the table and closed her hand around Daniel's forearm. He looked up at that. She searched his eyes a moment, gauging the emotions that played on his face against his will.  
  
"Daniel..." she began with no sense of the words that would follow. "Are you OK?"  
  
Well, that hadn't been the in to his labyrinth of pain she'd been in search of, but it was a start. He smiled, the same bittersweet smile that claimed his features when he saw families at Christmas time. Sam wasn't ready for his bold, direct reply.  
  
"She was so fucking beautiful," he said softly.  
  
Certainly, one's losses were illuminated by ritual celebrations, but there was precious little more elucidating than the red and green lights of the Christmas season. Sam couldn't help but feel there was more to it, though, than recollections of the wife she'd helped him grieve for.  
  
"You miss her," she offered.  
  
Daniel shut his eyes and laid his hand on the table. Sam's grip on his forearm relaxed and, after a moment, she slid her hand down to cover his.  
  
"I... I loved her. But, I..." He trailed off. Sam waited. "I think I miss what she was right now."  
  
She had an idea what he meant, but waited patiently still for him to elaborate.  
  
"Everyone has someone to visit, somebody to love. And I don't have anyone, short of communing with the dead."  
  
His words marred her heart with their subtle agony. She didn't know what to say, but she couldn't figure out how to turn back either. Their conversation had led them here and she struggled inwardly to find a way out of this. It wasn't doing Daniel any good, only perpetuating his angst.  
  
"You've got me, Danny," she said quietly, a shy smile on her face.  
  
When Daniel looked back at her, it grew. It grew so bright, he forgot his own name, and with it any worry he'd ever had. He smiled back.  
  
"Hey, do you wanna come to my brother's with me? It's going to be great – carols, big meal, presents."  
  
Her friend considered this a moment, measuring his desire to share the holiday with her against his fear that he'd be imposing or, worse, terrible company.  
  
"He'd love to have you. I told him all about you," she said at his non- committal expression.  
  
"Really?"  
  
"Sure. You're my best friend."  
  
"I really appreciate it... but... I donno, Sam. I'd feel like an intruder on everyone's Christmas."  
  
"Danny, on your worst day, you're the most pleasant intrusion I've ever known."  
  
Daniel's smile reached his eyes.  
  
"Come on. Come with me. We'll have a few laughs, open presents, watch 'Miracle on 34th Street.'"  
  
He nodded very slowly, then after a few moments, at a normal clip. "OK... OK."  
  
Sam's dormant hand began to tap Daniel's excitedly. "Great! That's great! I'll call the airline tonight."  
  
"When do we leave?"  
  
"4:30 tomorrow. I'll come by your place."  
  
"OK, great."  
  
Sam stood, her face contorted into a permanent smile.  
  
"Don't stay here too late, Daniel. Go home and sleep, huh?"  
  
"Yeah," he replied, well aware they both knew he'd be there well into the night.  
  
She shook her head in mild frustration and with much affection, then turned to leave the commissary.  
  
"Hey, Sam?"  
  
"Yeah?"  
  
"Thank you."  
  
"Sure, Danny."  
  
She left. His smile didn't.  
  
-------------  
  
I've got a whole, long story in mind for this, inspired by a favorite film of mine. Let me know if it's worth continuing writing. 


End file.
